Breaking Down, Letting Go
by happy-me-111
Summary: **REPOST** Fixed spelling errors Roger and Mimi find release in each other as they grieve the death of their best friend.


**Title**: Breaking Down, Letting Go

**Summary**: AU Roger and Mimi find release in each other as they grief the death of their friend.

**Rating**: K+, only because you can't write a RENT fic for anything less.

**Notes**: This is my first 'published' fanfiction. Don't know if that's important to anyone else besides me. Reviews would be nice, but don't feel like you have to. Anyone who writes just for the reviews writes for the wrong reason. I just came up with this idea and wrote it at like two o'clock in the morning and I think it's the best of what I've written.

**Credits**: Some people might notice that I used some dialogue from an episode of the show _Charmed._ I used to love that show and I still watch it occasionally watch it. There was one part of the show that always stuck out with me and I've always wanted to use the dialogue in it. If anyone would like to know the episode I'm talking about and the story behind my madness, let me know in a review and I'll get you on to the story. Enough rambling…

The loft's deadly silence rang off the walls. Quiet seeped from every corner and crevasse, surrounding its patrons, which were now few and far in between. Roger walked silently into the familiar place and shut the door behind him with barely a soft _click_. Not yet unnerved by the stillness, Roger proceeded to lay his guitar by the side of the couch. After listening for a second, he heard soft sounds coming from down the hallway. Welcoming some noise and a possible distraction from actual reality, Roger was hesitant to proactively seek out the source of the disturbance. Because if he found the source, that would mean the sound would stop being a mystery and he would have nothing else to think about. And when Roger has nothing to think about he starts to remember, and remembering was no longer very easy.

Standing stoically in the small kitchen, Roger realized he hadn't yet seen his girlfriend, Mimi. Lately she had made it a point to be waiting on the couch with a wan smile and an overly sweet cup of tea whenever he got home. The sounds had to have some connection with Mimi, the only other existence in the loft. Studying the living area quietly (still seeing nothing), Roger walked silently across the floor until he reached the hallway that contained the bedrooms and the bathroom. He meandered down the hallway and headed to his bedroom – maybe Mimi would have finally fallen asleep.

"Hey Mimi –," Roger called out, stopping short and cold when he saw Mimi, not in his room, but standing in Mark's room by the bed. Her back was turned and for a second Roger couldn't get his throat to work properly, emotion building thickly, until finally…

"Hey, whatcha doing in here?" Roger whispered so softly that he wasn't even sure he had said anything at all. Mimi spun around very slowly to face Roger. Her long, dark hair fell wildly across her face, mingling with the rivets of tears that created silver trails along her cheeks. She stared hard at Roger, her eyes boring holes into his proverbial barriers. In her hands she was fiddling with an object that Roger never wanted to see again – Mark's camera. When she finally spoke Mimi's voice was soft and although not quite chocked from tears, steady emotion could easily be detected.

"Do you remember when I borrowed Mark's camera without asking?"

"Which time?" Roger's comment had little humor behind it, but the tone took some tension out of the air.

"The time when I broke the lens after dropping it on the floor. He was_ so_ mad, I thought he was going to have a stroke," Mimi reminisced, a slight smile playing at her lips. But as she continued the glow evaporated from her eyes. "But the thing is, he got mad at you," her voice losing its sickly optimistic quality, "because he thought you were the one that broke it." Mimi's voice cracked slightly as she persisted in her monologue. "And you never told him the truth," she gasped out, losing all sense of composure, "he never knew it was actually me!" Her last few words rose in volume and intensity, filling the room with an insurmountable amount of pure agony and sorrow.

"He-he-he never knew…I'm s-s-so sorry, Mark, I didn't mean to… oh God, no…please, NO!" Mimi dissolved steadily into sobs, letting more tears glide down her beautiful face with torrential force. As Mimi frantically called out apologies, Roger stepped forward and removed the small camera from his girlfriend's weakening grasp before crushing her in a passionate embrace. This gesture broke the dam, and Mimi fell against Roger's muscular chest. He wrapped his arms around her tiny frame and ran his fingers through her long, stringy hair.

Mimi's blotched face had regained some fullness and health to it since her withdrawal, but currently her skin was pale and the redness surrounding her eyes stuck out like a tasteless relative wearing hot pink at a funeral. Roger held Mimi and starred up at the ceiling. No words formed in his head to try and consolidate his destabilized__charge – his grief being just as strong and all consuming. Mimi's entire body shivered and in some sick way the convulsing reminded Roger of her recent drug withdrawal symptoms.

Tears eventually found their way to Roger's eyes and before long the sudden surge of emotion permitted the moisture to be released. No sound emitted from his lips but inside a war raged. Ramming over and over again into his ribcage, his heart clenched horribly with every choked sob Mimi let go. His stomach burned with ferocity, the acid rolling and churning like a violent storm on the sea. Anger was ripping at Roger, tearing him apart. Anger at himself, anger at Mark, anger at Angel, anger at his guitar, anger with A.I.D.S and disease, anger at life.

Not being able to handle Mimi's anguish any longer, Roger carefully guided her to Mark's vacant mattress. Leaning against the window, he drew Mimi with him and leaned her against him facing the door. Awkwardly he reached for a Kleenex and pressed the tissue into Mimi's hand.

"Thanks," she mumbled, hiccupping slightly from her tears. Finally mustering the needed strength for speech, Roger spoke.

"I was wondering when you were going to let go."

After a few poignant seconds Mimi answered, "I was trying to be strong. For you, you know? Just trying to get through the funeral and all the junk. I just can't believe he's gone."

Roger breathed out heavily, "Me either." For a long while, the couple lied together in numbing silence. Roger looked around Mark's room, taking in every aspect of the area. In the corner of the room boxes of film reels laid untouched. The film projector had been forced out of view, but Roger knew it was there. After finding out about Mark's death, Roger had gone on a rampage and tried to rid himself of everything that reminded him of his best friend. Piling all of Mark's stuff in his closet, Roger had tried to close the door on Mark's memory forever.

But he could not, no possible way existed. Roger had been self-imploding, completely closing off before Mimi intervened. She had gotten him through the immediate aftermath of Mark's death, through the funeral and through the grief. And the whole time she had never once cried or thought about herself. Roger's arms tightened protectively around Mimi. A role reversal was finally taking place and the couple could get back to normal. Mimi had wholly supported Roger throughout the ordeal and now his turn to comfort her had come. For the first time, Roger realized that he was not the only person that had lost Mark. Mimi had lost Mark. Collins, Maureen and Joanne, and even Benny had all lost Mark. The world had lost Mark. But the world would go on without the quiet, compassionate filmmaker. And as the somber pair cuddled together, Roger decided that somehow he would go on too.


End file.
